One of the most significant and remarkable paintings in the entire Western canon is Masaccio's Holy Trinity, to be found in the Dominican basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. It is an extraordinary work in many ways, but not least because it is the first rendering of true perspectival space in history. Painted (we think) in the 1410s it represents an amazing leap in perspectival consciousness. Giotto had begun exploring pictorial space - that is, the illusion of a third dimension on a two dimensional surface - a century earlier. It was hardly pursued after that, but then, suddenly, Masaccio produced the Holy Trinity. It was an amazing departure from all previous conventions. We do not know the steps, but somehow young Masaccio was able to take the nascent perspective of Giotto to its logical conclusion. The Holy Trinity is a fresco painted to appear as if its internal space is exactly continuous with reality. That is, it seems as though you could walk into it. When it was new and freshly painted and its colours vibrant it must have been truly remarkable to its contemporaries. Masaccio had created a new world. Its importance is often overlooked in standard accounts of the Renaissance. It was the painting that linked the Early Renaissance with the High Renaissance. It changed everything.
It is remarkable for many other reasons too. Theologically, and symbolically, it is a revolutionary work with many arcane and mysterious features. As with its use of pictorial space, it goes back to an earlier iconography which it then develops with almost scientific precision. The artist it tackling one of the most difficult subjects in Christian art: the Trinity. How do you depict the doctrine of the Trinity? Three Persons in One God is, by definition, a supra-rational mystery. How do you depict an ineffable mystery? It took Christians several centuries to define the Trinity (with tautologies) in words. Christian art has always struggled to render the doctrine of the Trinity in a satisfactory and theologically acceptable manner. Most often in traditional icons the Three Persons are simply depicted as three separate individuals, thus:
But this hardly captures their Unity. It is theologically inexact. Other artists attempted more creative but awkward compositions with almost grotesque consequences:
The iconography Masaccio has followed and refined and amplified is of a relatively obscure type found in the work of the early Renaissance painter Gaddi:
Notice the gold background in this icon. This is exactly where the momentous change has occurred. In Gaddi's painting - in the pre-Renaissance or 'Byzantine' tradition - the gold background represents the Eternal. The Trinity are in Eternity. Masaccio, however, has replaced the gold background with an illusion of real space, and therefore real time too. He takes Gaddi's obscure arrangement of the Persons of the Trinity and places it within precise and we might say a 'rational' space. It looks as though the Persons of the Trinity are right there, life-sized, in a chapel set in the wall of the church. Indeed, one can draw an exact floor plan of this illusory chapel, and we can ascertain that the illusion was created with such mathematical precision that the fresco is made to be seen from an exact point on the floor of the basilica. Theologically, the Trinity have moved from Eternity to the World. The Persons are situated within the created world, not beyond it. There has been a shift from transcendence to immanence. We moderns typically admire this about the Renaissance, but as we can see the shift means that men moved their gaze from Heaven to Earth. Few paintings illustrate this more willfully than Masaccio's fresco. It is not a pretty painting. In fact, it is pretty ugly. But as a theological document it is astounding.
It's full theology could only be appreciated in our own times, however. At some point the fresco had been moved from its original location, and had only been known for centuries out of context and, it turned out, incomplete. Here is how the painting was known for most of its history:
But when the fresco was relocated to its original position in modern restorations, another part of the painting was uncovered. It had been lost and forgotten. Some early written accounts referred to the painting depicting 'The Death' but it was not understood what this meant. During restorations, though, a whole lower section of the fresco was discovered depicting a tomb and a skeleton in repose. Only once this lower section was discovered were we able to see the full painting in its original composition, thus:
Iconographhically, the 'Death' entombed below the Trinity changes everything. What has happened is that Masaccio has taken the skull that Gaddi places at the bottom of the crucifix in his Trinity icon and has expanded the motif into a full skeleton in a tomb. In that case, we can identify the tomb with confidence as the tomb of Adam. In Gaddi's traditional iconography the skull of Adam is positioned at the foot of the cross, theologically signifying Christ's redemption of Adam's mortal sin. This is in fact a commonplace in crucifixion iconography. Once again, Masaccio has taken a leap in his departure from tradition. The skull of Adam becomes a whole skeleton in a tomb below the cross.
Moreover, above the skeleton is an inscription. It presumably announces the whole theme of the work. It is a momenta mori. The inscription says, in Italian: WHAT YOU ARE I ONCE WAS, WHAT I AM YOU WILL BE. The fact this is in Italian and not Latin is remarkable in its historical context. It is not just for clerical eyes but is intended for the common man. It simply says: This skeleton was once a living man like you, but one day you too will be a skeleton like him. And yet, within the whole painting, it has a double meaning. For these might also be the words of God. In that case it means: I, God, was once a man so that you, man, can be God. The words of the inscription might equally be spoken by dead Adam or living Christ. It is remarkable that Masaccio has taken this simple momenta mori - a common moralistic reminder of one's mortality - and given it this theological twist.
All things considered, there is no question that the theology of the painting is orthodox, and yet it takes orthodox doctrine and symbolism into new configurations. It is unlikely that Masaccio did this unilaterally. For a start, the painting was commissioned, and we see the two donors standing outside the chapel in the painting. The artist was no doubt meeting the specifications of the family who was paying for the job. More important, though, is the likely involvement of the Dominicans. When we delve deeper into the painting we run into an important fact: it is a strange painting in a church with many strange paintings. The Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella seemed to have had a taste for arcane iconography. And we also know that the same Dominicans had a particular interest in mathematics and mathematical symbolism. Their philosophical stripe was what medievals called 'Realist'. The Holy Trinity fresco at Santa Maria Novella is, without doubt, a Dominican painting. It is inconceivable that such a work could have been made in a Fransiscan setting. It presents a vision of a rational, mathematical reality. It is a very intellectual painting. The space might be real but it is not naturalistic in a sentimental sense. There is no emotion whatsoever. The Fransiscans used perspective for far more humanistic, not to say 'nominalist', purposes.
Notice the donors. They are looking at each other and are not actually engaged with the inner chapel. Inside the chapel are the Blessed Virgin and John the Beloved. (We know, therefore, that the crucifixion element of the painting is following the Gospel of John.) Notice the gesture of the Virgin Mary. It is the only gesture in the painting which is otherwise entirely static and still. Only the Virgin Mary moves. Her gesture welcomes us into the painting. She is looking at us, the viewer. She is looking out into real space. (Unlike God the Father who is staring ahead into transcendent space. God the Father is very deliberately not looking at any point in the basilica but rather into emptiness.) The Virgin's gesture says "Behold!" and invites us into the three dimensional space. Notice this in relation to Christ's loincloth, however. Christ's loincloth is slipping. It is barely covering his genitals. We actually see his pubic hair. This is the only drama and tension in the whole painting. Is that loincloth going to slip off or not? It is as though the Virgin Mary's gesture is holding it up. This has an interesting theology.
We might consider other aspects of this painting in later posts.
Harper McAlpine Black
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